Council bans circuses using wild animal acts
FINGAL County Council has become the first local authority to ban circuses using wild animal acts from performing on public land in its area.
Circus Watch Ireland spokesperson Nuala Donlon congratulated the north Dublin councillors for passing the motion and called on county and city councils throughout the Republic to follow their example and impose similar bans.
"This is an extremely important first step towards ending the Victorian practice of keeping wild animals in travelling shows, and it reflects the growing opposition in this country to the cruelty of animals which is inherent in all animal circuses", she said.
Both Circus Watch Ireland and the Alliance for Animal Rights groups have continuously highlighted the conditions which circus animals are forced to live in and the dubious practices employed to get the animals to 'perform' once in the ring.
Ms Donlon pointed out that similar bans have already been introduced by local authorities throughout the UK and continental Europe.
Earlier this year, Andersonstown Council in Belfast passed a motion preventing circuses containing any animals from using council property while an identical motion will be voted on tonight in the Newtownabbey Council in Antrim.
"We are calling on all county and city councillors in the Republic to follow the lead of their counterparts in Fingal Council and take the humane decision to ban circuses with animal acts from using public lands. "In 2007 animals shouldn't be subjected to such appalling suffering in the name of entertainment" Ms Donlon said.
Councillors were lobbied in advance, with hundreds of e-mails highlighting the plight of animals "confined to the beastwagons of travelling circuses" sent to them.
Socialist Party councillor Clare Daly, who proposed the motion, said that it would now come before the council's community strategic policy committee in order to work out the details of the by-laws and how it can be implemented with satisfaction.
"While, I would have been happier if it was all animals, I believe that it is an important step forward," she said
"I hope it can be used to assist a possible debate in other local authorities around the country," she said.
A spokesperson for Fossett's Circus said last night that they were "disappointed but not threatened" by the decision by Fingal County Council.
Fosset's Marketing manager, Charles O'Brien, said that they had studied the final decision in full and believed it to be an interim one.
"Fingal County Council is perfectly within its right to take any decision it wants, but it has to take cognisance of the people who voted for its members. "It would be a very sad day for the people of Fingal if Irish circuses could not play there and the people had to travel to outside the area to see the circus," he said.
He added that it was "an undoubted fact" that animals would remain part of the circus tradition.
"While other contemporary circuses such as the Cirque du Soleil are very laudable, the traditional circus in Europe and the UK and Ireland always had animals and will always have animals. In our opinion this will never change," he said.
